One of the most frequently asked questions by EditsMadeEasy clients who are exploring the option of writing personal histories is whether they are preparing a memoir or an autobiography. In fact, when many writers feel compelled to record the story of their lives, they often face this question—as well as the questions of which elements the writing requires as critical to the genre, or what must be extrapolated from events, or in just what ways, if any, the memoir and autobiography are different. Or maybe they’re the same thing? While both the memoir and the autobiography have elements in common, there are also ways in which they differ. To determine whether your project falls into one category or the other, here are a few points to consider.

Memoir

The MEMOIR is the less constructed of the two genres. It does not need to span the life of the writer but can be about a single day, a special moment, a fragrance, a particular color (that leads you to recall a shirt of that color that you wore in high school, an event during which you wore the shirt, what your best friend thought about your clothing choices, etc.). These seemingly disparate thoughts are your memories and a memoir is like a memory book; that is, it can be a collection of your thoughts and feelings about any one particular time period, person, place or thing. It is mainly what you remember and not necessarily a detailed account of facts and events as you would find them in a piece of journalism. It is more like a diary entry than a newspaper article.

Let’s say you have decided to capture something from your life experience on paper. This can be a happy or sad event, a life-threatening or life-changing one, or you can simply be compelled to write about why you like to spend time at the beach. You begin to recall your subject and—in the way of all thinking minds—you begin to have many thoughts that seem to be off the topic. For example, the beach recalls a particular bathing suit you owned when you were sixteen, the smell of fried dough wafting across the boardwalk, the diets you were always trying, your envy of your friend’s svelte figure, her parents, parenting your own children, and so on. You seem to ramble on but you eventually bring yourself back to that beach and what pleasure it brings to you and why. That is memoir.

Note that this piece of writing did not necessarily include the day, time and place of your birth, your maternal or paternal grandparents, the story of how or why they came to this country or where they are living now, historical events that shaped you, your spouse, and other factual details of your lifespan. These elements would be some of the things you might include if you were writing an autobiography.

Autobiography

The AUTOBIOGRAPHY, then, is subject to a more structured approach and is considered to be an entire life’s history. Even if you are only sixteen years old, like Justin Bieber, your autobiography must cover the events that led up to the present time and place so the reader gets a sense of your personal history. The autobiography allows less room for mental rambling than the memoir. It should stick to topic, be concise, and take the reader down a particularly straight and narrow path. As a once-popular television detective used to say, “Just the facts, ma’am.”

Just the facts, however, does not mean that your autobiography needs to be dull and lifeless. In fact, it should not be, because the purpose in writing an autobiography at all is to make the seemingly mundane take on a new and vibrant meaning so the events of your life add a new dimension to who you are for the reader. You want to insert your personality into the telling of the events in such a way as to make the reader come away understanding you a bit more, feeling closer to you and empathizing with your choices in some way.

Above all, in both memoir and autobiography, readers must receive some benefit in the long run. Readers should be entertained, or amused, or horrified—if that’s the story you decide to tell. And, while the personal is often the universal, an autobiography that is too far removed from any reader’s experience will fall flat, as will a memoir. Keep your readers in mind at all times—your ideal readers, that is—and your story will become the vehicle by which you reach them and pull them in, whether that  is through a memoir or an autobiography.

Next: How to Identify Your Ideal Reader.

IRENE—Read more about this editor

Got a Story to Tell?

Has anyone ever said you should write a book? Maybe you have some interesting characters in your family or a story or two worth telling. Perhaps you were involved in a defining moment in history. Or maybe you would like to keep your children and grandchildren aware of the family’s roots. Writing a memoir can help preserve history as experienced through your personal perspective. Whether or not you feel the reading public at-large would be interested in your story, there can be other reasons for composing it.

Memoir writing not only recounts history; it helps put the events of your life in order. Writing can help establish a fresh perspective and open new avenues of self-discovery. Digging through your memory banks can produce answers to questions that may have bothered you. It may help you locate lost relatives or clarify family events that have previously been a hazy memory. The reasons for writing a memoir are as varied as we are, but the steps needed to put words to paper are the same—no matter what our personal goals. The real challenge, however, is how to get started.

Getting Started

Like most nonfiction writing, a memoir can best be accomplished by starting with an outline. The outline should be chronological and contain the specific people or events you are most interested in writing about, along with the specific timeframe you would like to cover. To start out by trying to cover your entire life is probably not the best way to go, since it will dilute your story and make the task seem onerous right from the start. Once you have a basic working frame, you can begin to gather information to fill in the blanks around the story. Then, if you feel there is more to be added to the story, you can always add to your outline. Think of each outline entry as a possible chapter in your memoir.

Besides keeping the chapters chronological, it is helpful to put them in a natural linking order. For example, perhaps you have decided to write about moving to the United States from a foreign country when you were five years old. Your initial outline might look like this:

I.                   Living in the USA

A.     The physical move

1.       where you came from

2.      how you traveled

3.      when you moved

4.      who came with you

5.      what you brought

6.      why you moved here

 Note: Try to write as much as you can about each of these points-not just one sentence. Make notes of the people you need to talk to who can provide more information, i.e. those who traveled with you or those who stayed behind. Try to give reasons for what you brought, why you left your homeland, or why you chose a certain geographic area. When you have exhausted all these topics, move on to the next part of your outline, which might be:

 B. Your American neighborhood

 Note: Use the who, what, when, why and where approach again to form the initial structure for your memoir.

The hunt for information will probably be both the most fascinating and the most arduous part of your memoir. First, gather all the material you have at hand: scrapbooks, old photographs and family albums, letters, newspaper clippings, magazines and so forth. Separate them according to their relevance to your outline. Next, note living family members who can provide or share more information with you, or make a list of items you would like to research in the library or online. Most of all, have fun on your hunt for buried family treasure!

Have some experience with memoir-writing? Or questions or ideas about this topic? Leave us a COMMENT to share your thoughts.

IRENE—Read more about this editor